MIRAMSHAH: Sixteen persons were killed and four others sustained injuries in two separate missile attacks by the US drones in North Waziristan on Thursday.

Tribal sources said a drone fired two missiles at a house in Spalga village located on the Miramshah-Razmak Road early in the day. The villagers said six people were killed and four others sustained injuries in the attack. Local tribesmen said the house caught fire and collapsed when it was hit by the unmanned aerial vehicle. According to the villagers, bodies of six persons were pulled put of the wreckage. All were disfigured beyond recognition. “All the bodies wererecognition. “All the bodies were burnt and had turned into pieces. It was hard to recognise them,” a tribesman told The News. The villagers also said that four other people suffered injuries and were later shifted to a hospital in Miramshah, where the doctors reported them in critical condition

Later in the day, a drone carried out another attack and targeted a double-cabin pickup truck on the Mir Ali-Khaisoor Road, at a distance of 35 kilometres south of Mir Ali, the second major town of North Waziristan, killing 10 people. The tribal sources said the double-cabin pickup truck was on way to Khaisoor village from Mir Ali. Khaisoor is located near the border with South Waziristan. The villagers said four US spy planes were flying over the area during the missile attack on the vehicle. They said the drones continued hovering over the area even an hour after the missile attack. “No one could risk his life to get close to the destroyed vehicle and retrieve bodies of the slain people due to fear of the drones which were still flying over the area even after the attack,” a local tribesman said. There was no way to ascertain the identity of the people slain in the two drone attacks.

The United States has stepped up drone strikes in North Waziristan and killed a number of people at a time when different political parties and local tribesmen in the tribal region are planning to stage a march on Islamabad along with the victims of the missile strikes and family members of those killed in these attacks.